Tag: late night

The glow in the dark stars on the ceiling are making me a little sad and sentimental.

You know, those little stick on stars that light up when you turn off all the lights, stuck to the ceiling so lovingly by your parents.

Or grandparents if you had some like mine.

My brother and I used to frequently stay overnight at my grandparents’ house when we were younger, leading my grandpa to stick up those plastic stars on the ceiling of the guest bedroom. They are perfectly placed there, maybe even in constellations, to this day. I know this because I am laying under this “sky” as I type.

They’re a little faded now. You have to squint your eyes a little to see them these days.

It’s almost metaphorical.

Spending the night ten years ago meant renting a movie or playing games, popping some popcorn, baking cookies, being teased mercilessly by my grandpa and falling peacefully asleep under a sky full of pretend stars. It was a house filled with the love of both my grandparents, and their two little dogs.

Gosh how I miss that.

These days, the dogs are up there hanging out with Jesus.

My grandpa is too.

It’s strange how the world changes around you and you just have to keep pressing forward. In the midst of my whole world changing, I hardly have time to notice.

I wasn’t at the hospital much when my grandpa died. It was my senior year – I had things to do, plans to make. I didn’t have time to think about it, and really, I don’t think I wanted to.

Now I have a little time to think, and miss him.

Now I have a little time to think, and I’m thinking.

These days I spend a night or two with my grandma when I can. She’s lonely without her husband and her dogs to keep her company and she’s a little sad because she knows she is slowly forgetting.

She gets confused and calls me by my cousin’s name sometimes. She misplaces everything and she stopped driving and using the stove. She asks me the same questions or makes the same statements in conversation. No, it isn’t funny. Yes, it is painful to watch.

Sometimes, I get jealous. It seems like my parents care more about her than they do about me as I try to navigate college and figure out life. Selfishly, I allow her to irritate me when I know with every fiber of my being that it isn’t her fault.

But I don’t want to be stuck in that. My grandma is a woman who loves the Lord. She loves other people and always puts them before herself. She and my grandpa left their life in Kansas to come here to be a part of mine and my brother’s lives.

I am grateful for the life I’ve gotten to experience with them and the life that is yet to come.